Congestion Pricing

For our November Poll, panellists were asked for their thoughts on the following proposition:

"In general, using more congestion charges in crowded transportation networks — such as higher tolls during peak travel times in cities, and peak fees for airplane takeoff and landing slots — and using the proceeds to lower other taxes would make citizens on average better off."

* Collaborator credits: we would like to thank Warwick Davis and Dr Leslie Martin for their expert overviews of the results. We also acknowledge the IGM Forum for the original poll question.

Background information

In the week leading up to the recent state election in Victoria, current Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison reheated the population growth debate (read more here), linking immigration to worsening congestion in our major cities.

It is a good time (especially in the lead up to the New South Wales state and federal elections in 2019) for the Economic Society of Australia's National Economic Panel (NEP) to comment on the core issue here that is salient to voters. That is, transport congestion and the potential role and impacts of congestion pricing.

This month we put to the Economic Society of Australia's National Economic Panel the identical question on congestion pricing that was put by University of Chicago's IGM Forum to their US Economic Experts Panel in 2012 and to their European Economic Experts Panel in 2016.

This provides a useful, additional indicator of the level of economic consensus on this issue across continents and from a cross-section of the top economists in the world.

Poll Results and Overviews

Click on the following links to read an overview of these poll results by Warwick Davis, Frontier Economics and Dr Leslie Martin, University of Melbourne.